V. I. Lenin

New Times and Old Mistakes in a New Guise

Written:20 August, 1921First Published:PravdaNo. 190, August 28, 1921; Signed:N.Lenin; Published according to thePravdatext checked with proofs corrected by LeninSource:Lenin’sCollected Works, 2nd English Edition, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1965,Volume 33, pages 21-29Translated:David Skvirsky and George HannaTranscription\HTML Markup:David Walters&R. CymbalaCopyleft:V. I. Lenin Internet Archive (www.marx.org) 2002. Permission is granted to copy and/or distribute this document under the terms of theGNU Free Documentation License

Every specific turn in history causes some change in the form of
      petty-bourgeois wavering, which always occurs alongside the
      proletariat, and which, in one degree or an other, always
      penetrates its midst.

This wavering flows in two “streams”:
      petty-bourgeois reformism, i.e., servility to the bourgeoisie
      covered by a cloak of sentimental democratic and
      “Social"-Democratic phrases and fatuous wishes; and
      petty-bourgeois revolutionism—menacing, blustering and
      boastful in words, but a mere bubble of disunity, disruption and
      brainlessness in deeds. This wavering will inevitably occur
      until the taproot of capitalism is cut. Its form is now changing
      owing to the change taking place in the economic policy of the
      Soviet government.

The leitmotif of the Mensheviks[1]is: “The
      Bolsheviks have reverted to capitalism; that is where they will
      meet their end. The revolution, including the October
      Revolution, has turned out to be a bourgeois revolution after
      all! Long live democracy! Long live reformism!” Whether
      this is saidin the purely Menshevik spirit or
	in the spirit of the Socialist-Revolutionaries,[2]in
	the spirit of the Second International or in the spirit of the
	Two-and-a-Half International,[3]it amounts to the
	same thing.

The leitmotif of semi-anarchists like the German
      “Communist Workers' Party”,[4]or of that section
      of our former Workers' Opposition[5]which has left or
      is becoming estranged from the Party, is: “The Bolsheviks
      have lost faith in the working class.” The slogans they
      deduce from this are more or less akin to the
      “Kronstadt” slogans of the spring of 1921.[6]

In contrast to the whining and panic of the philistines from among reformists and of the philistines from among revolutionaries, the Marxists must weigh the alignment of actual class forces and the incontrovertible facts as soberly and as accurately as possible.

Let us recall the main stages of our revolution. The first
      stage: the purely political stage, so to speak, from October 25
      to January 5, when the Constituent Assembly[7]was
      dissolved. In a matter of ten weeks we did a hundred times more
      to actually and completely destroy the survivals of feudalism in
      Russia than the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries did
      during the eight monthstheywere in power—from
      February to October 1917. At that time, the Mensheviks and
      Socialist-Revolutionaries in Russia, and all the heroes of the
      Two-and-a-Half International abroad, acted as miserable
      accomplices of reaction. As for the anarchists, some stood aloof
      in perplexity, while others helped us. Was the revolution a
      bourgeois revolution at that time? Of course it was, insofar as
      our function was to complete the bourgeois democratic
      revolution, insofar as there was as yet no class struggle among
      the “peasantry”.But, at the same time, we
      accomplished a great dealover and abovethe bourgeois
      revolutionforthe socialist, proletarian revolution:
      1) we developed the forces of the working class foritsutilisation of state power to an extent never achieved before;
      2) we struck a blow that was felt all over the world against the
      fetishes of petty-bourgeois democracy, the Constituent Assembly
      and bourgeois “liberties” such as freedom of the
      press for the rich; 5) we created the Soviettypeof
      state, which was a gigantic step in advance of 1795 and 1871.

The second stage: the Brest-Litovsk peace.[8]There
      was a riot of revolutionary phrase-mongering against
      peace—the semi-jingoist phrase-mongering of the
      Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks, and the
      “Left” phrase-mongering of a certain section of the
      Bolsheviks. “Since you have made peace with imperialism
      you are doomed,” argued the philistines, some in panic and
      some with malicious glee. But the Socialist-Revolutionaries and
      the Mensheviks made peace with imperialism as participants in
      the bourgeois robbery of the workers. We “made
      peace”, surrendering to the robbers part of our property,
      only in order to save the workers' rule, and in order to be able
      to strike heavier blows at the robbers later on. At that time we
      heard no end of talk about our having “lost faith in the
      forces of the working class"; but we did not allow ourselves to
      be deceived by this phrase-mongering.

The third stage: the Civil War, beginning with the
      Czechoslovaks[9]and the Constituent Assembly crowd
      and ending with Wrangel,[10]from 1918 to
      1920. At the beginning of the war our Red Army was
      non-existent. Judged as a material force, this army is even now
      insignificant compared with the army of any of the Entente
      powers. Nevertheless, we emerged victorious from the struggle
      against the mighty Entente. The alliance between the peasants
      and the workers led by proletarian rule—this achievement
      of epoch-making importance—was raised to an unprecedented
      level. The Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries acted as the
      accomplices of the monarchy overtly (as Ministers, organisers
      and propagandists) and covertly (the more “subtle”
      and despicable method adopted by the Chernovs and Martovs, who
      pretended to wash their hands of the affair but actually used
      their pens against us). The anarchists too vacillated
      helplessly, one section of them helping us, while another
      hindering us by their clamour against military discipline or by
      their scepticism.

The fourth stage: the Entente is compelled to cease (for how
      long?) its intervention and blockade. Our unprecedentedly
      dislocated country is just barely beginning to recover, is only
      just realising the full depth of its ruin, is suffering the most
      terrible hardships—stoppage of industry, crop failures,
      famine, epidemics.

We have risen to the highest and at the same time the most
      difficult stage of our historic struggle. Our enemy at the
      present moment and in the present period is not the same one
      that faced us yesterday. He is not the hordes of whiteguards
      commanded by the landowners and supported by all the Mensheviks
      and Socialist-Revolutionaries, by the whole international
      bourgeoisie. He is everyday economics in a small-peasant country
      with a ruined large-scale industry. He is the petty-bourgeois
      element which surrounds us like the air, and penetrates deep
      into the ranks of the proletariat. And the proletariat is
      declassed, i. e., dislodged from its class groove. The factories
      and mills are idle—the proletariat is weak, scattered,
      enfeebled. On the other hand, the petty-bourgeois element within
      the country is backed by the whole international bourgeoisie,
      which still retains its power throughout the world.

Is this not enough to make people quail, especially heroes like
      the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries, the knights of the
      Two-and-a-Half International, the helpless anarchists and the
      lovers of “Left” phrases? “The Bolsheviks are
      reverting to capitalism; the Bolsheviks are done for. Their
      revolution, too, has not gone beyond the confines of a bourgeois
      revolution.” We hear plenty of wails of this sort.

But we have grown accustomed to them.

We do not belittle the danger. We look it straight in the
      face. We say to the workers and peasants: The danger is great;
      more solidarity, more staunchness, more coolness; turn the
      pro-Menshevik and pro-Socialist-Revolutionary panic-mongers and
      tub-thumpers out with contempt.

The danger is great. The enemy is far stronger than we are
      economically, just as yesterday he was far stronger than we were
      militarily. We know that; and in that knowledge lies our
      strength. We have already done so tremendously much to purge
      Russia of feudalism, to develop all the forces of the workers
      and peasants, to promote the world-wide struggle against
      imperialism and to advance the international proletarian
      movement, which is freed from the banalities and baseness of the
      Second and Two-and-a-Half Internationals, that panicky cries no
      longer affect us. We have more than fully
      “justified” our revolutionary activity, we have
      shown the whole world by our deeds what proletarian
      revolutionism is capable of in contrast to Menshevik-Socialist
      Revolutionary “democracy” and cowardly reformism
      decked with pompous phrases.

Anyone who fears defeat on the eve of a great struggle can call
      himself a socialist only out of sheer mockery of the
      workers.

It is precisely because we are not afraid to look danger in the
      face that we make the best use of our forces for the
      struggle—we weigh the chances more dispassionately,
      cautiously and prudently—we make every concession that
      will strengthen us and break up the forces of the enemy (now
      even the biggest fool can see that the “Brest peace”
      was a concession that strengthened us and dismembered the forces
      of international imperialism).

The Mensheviks are shouting that the tax in kind, the freedom to
      trade, the granting of concessions and state capitalism signify
      the collapse of communism. Abroad, the ex-Communist Levi has
      added his voice to that of the Mensheviks. This same Levi had to
      be defended as long as the mistakes he had made could be
      explained by his reaction to some of the mistakes of the
      “Left” Communists, particularly in March 1921 in
      Germany[11]; but this same Levi cannot be
      defended when, instead of admitting that he is wrong, he slips
      into Menshevism all along the line.

To the Menshevik shouters we shall simply point out that as
      early as the spring of 1918 the Communists proclaimed and
      advocated the idea of a bloc, an alliance with state capitalism
      against the petty-bourgeois element. That was three years ago!
      In the first months of the Bolshevik victory! Even then the
      Bolsheviks took a sober view of things. And since then nobody
      has been able to challenge the correctness of our sober
      calculation of the available forces.

Levi, who has slipped into Menshevism, advises the Bolsheviks
      (whose defeat by capitalism he “forecasts” in the
      same way as all the philistines, democrats, Social-Democrats and
      others had forecast our doom if we dissolved the Constituent
      Assembly!) to appeal for aid to the whole working class!
      Because, if you please, up to now only part of the working class
      has been helping us!

What Levi says here remarkably coincides with what is said by
      those semi-anarchists and tub-thumpers, and also by certain
      members of the former “Workers' Opposition”, who are
      so fond of talking large about the Bolsheviks now having
      “lost faith in the forces of the working class”.Both
      the Mensheviks and those with anarchist leanings make a fetish
      of the concept “forces of the working class”; they
      are incapable of grasping its actual, concrete meaning. Instead
      of studying and analysing its meaning, they declaim.

The gentlemen of the Two-and-a-Half International pose as
      revolutionaries; but in every serious situation they prove to be
      counter-revolutionaries because they shrink from the violent
      destruction of the old state machine; they have no 

      faith in the forces of the working class. It was not a mere
      catch-phrase we uttered when we said this about the
      Socialist-Revolutionaries and Co. Everybody knows that the
      October Revolution actually brought new forces, a new class, to
      the forefront, that the best representatives of the proletariat
      are now governing Russia, built up an army, led that army, set
      up local government, etc., are running industry, and so on. If
      there are some bureaucratic distortions in this administration,
      we do not conceal this evil; we expose it, combat it. Those who
      allow the struggle against the distortions of the new system to
      obscure its content and to cause them to forget that the working
      class has created and is guiding a state of the Soviet type are
      incapable of thinking, and are merely throwing words to the
      wind.

But the “forces of the working class” are not
      unlimited. If the flow of fresh forces from the working class is
      now feeble, sometimes very feeble, if, notwithstanding all our
      decrees, appeals and agitation, notwithstanding all our orders
      for “the promotion of non-Party people”, the flow of
      forces is still feeble, then resorting to mere declamations
      about having “lost faith in the forces of the working
      class” means descending to vapid phrase-mongering.

Without a certain “respite” these new forces will
      not be forthcoming; they can only grow slowly; and they can grow
      only on the basis of restored large-scale industry (i. e., to be
      more precise and concrete, on the basis of
      electrification). They can be obtained fromno othersource.

After an enormous, unparalleled exertion of effort, the working
      class in a small-peasant, ruined country, the working class
      which has very largely become declassed, needs an interval of
      time in which to allow new forces to grow and be brought to the
      fore, and in which the old and worn-out forces can
      “recuperate”.The creation of a military and state
      machine capable of successfully withstanding the trials of
      1917-21 was a great effort, which engaged, absorbed and
      exhausted real “forces of the working class” (and
      not such as exist merely in the declamations of the
      tub-thumpers). One must understand this and reckon with the
      necessary, or rather, inevitableslackeningof the rate
      of growth ofnewforces of the working class.

When the Mensheviks shout about the “Bonapartism” of
      the Bolsheviks (who, they claim, rely on troops and on the
      machinery of state against the will of “democracy”),
      they magnificently express the tactics of the bourgeoisie; and
      Milyukov, from his own standpoint, is right when he supports
      them, supports the “Kronstadt” (spring of 1921)
      slogans. The bourgeoisie quite correctly takes into
      consideration the fact that thereal“forces of
      the working class” now consist of the mighty vanguard of
      that class (the Russian Communist Party, which—not at one
      stroke, but in the course of twenty-five years—won for
      itself by deeds the role, the name and the power of the
      “vanguard” of the only revolutionary class) plus the
      elements which have been most weakened by being declassed, and
      which are most susceptible to Menshevik and anarchist
      vacillations.

The slogan “more faith in the forces of the working
      class” is now being used,in fact, to increase
      the influence of the Mensheviks and anarchists, as was vividly
      proved and demonstrated by Kronstadt in the spring of
      1921. Every class conscious worker should expose and send
      packing those who shout about our having “lost faith in
      the forces of the working class”, because these
      tub-thumpers are actually the accomplices of the bourgeoisie and
      the landowners, who seek to weaken the proletariat for their
      benefit by helping to spread the influence of the Mensheviks and
      the anarchists.

That is the crux of the matter if we dispassionately examine
      what the concept “forces of the working class”
      really means.

Gentlemen, what are you really doing to promote non-Party people
      to what is the main “front” today, the economic
      front, for the work of economic development? That is the
      question that class-conscious workers should put to the
      tub-thumpers. That is how the tub-thumpers always can and should
      be exposed. That is how it can always be proved that, actually,
      they are not assisting but hindering economic development; that
      they are not assisting but hindering the proletarian revolution;
      that they are pursuing not proletarian, but petty-bourgeois
      aims; and that they are serving an alien class.

Our slogans are: Down with the tub-thumpers! Down with the
      unwitting accomplices of the whiteguards who are repeating the
      mistakes of the hapless Kronstadt mutineers of the spring of
      1921! Get down to business-like, practical work that will take
      into account the specific features of the present situation and
      its tasks. We need not phrases but deeds.

A sober estimation of these specific features and of the real,
      not imaginary, class forces tells us:

The period of unprecedented proletarian achievements in the
      military, administrative and political fields has given way to a
      period in which the growth of new forces will be much slower;
      and that period did not set in by accident, it was inevitable;
      it was due to the operation not of persons or parties, but of
      objective causes. In the economic field, development is
      inevitably more difficult, slower, and more gradual; that arises
      from the very nature of the activities in this field compared
      with military, administrative and political activities. It
      follows from the specific difficulties of this work, from its
      being more deep-rooted, if one may so express it.

That is why we shall strive to formulate our tasks in this new,
      higher stage of the struggle with the greatest, with treble
      caution. We shall formulate them as moderately as possible. We
      shall make as many concessions as possible within the limits, of
      course, of what the proletariatcanconcede and yet
      remain the ruling class. We shall collect the moderate tax in
      kind as quickly as possible and allow the greatest possible
      scope for the development, strengthening and revival of peasant
      farming. We shall lease the enterprises that are not absolutely
      essential for us to lessees, including private capitalists and
      foreign concessionaires. We need a bloc, or alliance, between
      the proletarian state and state capitalism against the
      petty-bourgeois element. We must achieve this alliance
      skilfully, following the rule: “Measure your cloth seven
      times before you cut.” We shall leave ourselves a smaller
      field of work, only what is absolutely necessary. We shall
      concentrate the enfeebled forces of the working class on
      somethingless, but we shall consolidate ourselves all
      the more and put ourselves to the test of practical experience
      not once or twice, but over and over again. Step by step, inch
      by inch—for at present the “troops” we have at
      our commandcannotadvance any other way on tbe
      difficult road we have to travel, in the stern conditions under
      which we are living, and amidst the dangers we have to
      face. Those who find this work “dull”,
      “uninteresting” and “unintelligible”,
      those who turn up their noses or become panic-stricken, or who
      become intoxicated with their own declamations about the absence
      of the “previous elation”, the “previous
      enthusiasm”, etc., had better be “relieved of their
      jobs” and given a back seat, so as to prevent them from
      causing harm; for they will not or cannot understand the
      specific features of the present stage, the present phase of the
      struggle.

Amidst the colossal ruin of the country and the exhaustion of
      the forces of the proletariat, by a series of almost superhuman
      efforts, we are tackling the most difficult job: laying the
      foundation for a really socialist economy, for the regular
      exchange of commodities (or, more correctly, exchange of
      products) between industry and agriculture. The enemy is still
      far stronger than we are; anarchic, profiteering, individual
      commodity exchange is undermining our efforts at every step. We
      clearly see the difficulties and will systematically and
      perseveringly overcome them. More scope for independent local
      enterprise; more forces to the localities; more attention to
      their practical experience. The working class can heal its
      wounds, its proletarian “class forces” can
      recuperate, and the confidence of the peasantry in proletarian
      leadership can be strengthenedonlyas real success is
      achieved in restoring industry and in bringing about a regular
      exchange of products through the medium of the state that
      benefits both the peasant and the worker. And as we achieve this
      we shall get an influx of new forces, not as quickly as every
      one of us would like, perhaps, but we shall get it
      nevertheless.

Let us get down to work, to slower, more cautious, more
      persevering and persistent work!

August 20, 1921

[1]TheMenshevikswere adherents to a right-wing trend in the
      Russian Social-Democratic movement. They received their name at
      the close of the Second R.S.D.L.P. Congress in August 1905, when
      at the elections to the Party's central organs they found
      themselves in the minority (menshinstvo), and the
      revolutionary Social-Democrats headed by Lenin won the majority
      (boishinstvo); hence the names Bolsheviks and
      Mensheviks. The Mensheviks sought to secure agreement between
      the proletariat and the bourgeoisie. In the period of dual power
      after the bourgeois-democratic revolution of February 1917, when
      the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie as represented by the
      Provisional Government intertwined with the dictatorship of the
      proletariat and peasants as represented by the Soviets, the
      Mensheviks and the Socialist-Revolutionaries accepted-posts in
      the Provisional Government, supported its imperialist policy and
      opposed the mounting proletarian revolution. In the Soviets the
      Mensheviks pursued the same policy of supporting the Provisional
      Government and diverting the masses from the revolutionary
      movement.

After the October Revolution, they became an openly
      counter-revolutionary party, organising and participating in
      conspiracies and revolts against Soviet power.

[2]TheSocialist-Revoiutionarieswere members of a
      peasant-orietned party in Russia, which emerged at the end of
      1901 and beginning of 1902.

After the February bourgeois-democratic revolution in 1917 they
      were, together with the Mensheviks, the mainstay of the
      counter-revolutionary Provisional Government of the bourgeoisie
      and landowners, while their leaders held posts in that
      government. Far from supporting the peasants' demand for the
      abolition of landlordism, the Socialist-Revolutionary Party
      pressed for its preservation. The Socialist-Revolutionary
      Ministers of the Provisional Government sent punitive
      detachments against peasants who seized landed estates.

At the close of November 1917, the Left
      Socialist-Revolutionaries formed an independent party.

During the years of foreign military intervention and the Civil
      War the Socialist-Revolutionaries, carried on
      counter-revolutionary subversive activities, supported the
      interventionists and white guards, took part in
      counter-revolutionary plots and organised terrorist acts against
      leaders of the Soviet government and the Communist Party. After
      the Civil War they continued their hostile activities within the
      country and among whiteguard émigrés.

[3]TheTwo-and-a-Half International(whose official name was
      the International Association of Socialist Parties) was an
      international organisation of Centrist socialist parties and
      groups that had been forced out of the Second International by
      the revolutionary masses. It was formed at a conference in
      Vienna in February 1921. While criticising the Second
      International, the leaders of the Two-and-a-Half International
      pursued an opportunist, splitting policy on all key issues of
      the proletarian movement and sought to utilise their association
      to offset the growing influence of the Communists among the
      working-class masses.

In May 1925, the Second and Two-and-a-Half Internationals merged
      into the so-called Socialist Labour International.

[4]TheCommunist
      Workers Partyof Cermany was formed in April 1920 by
      “Left” Communists, who had been expelled from the
      Communist Party of Germany at the Heidelberg Congress in
      1919. In November 1920, in order to facilitate the unification
      of all communist forces in Germany and satisfy the wishes of the
      best proletarian elements within it, the C.W.P.G. was
      temporarily admitted to the Comintern with the rights of a
      sympathising member on the condition that it merged with the
      United Communist Party of Germany and supported its actions. The
      C.W.P.G. leadership did not fulfil the instructions of the
      Comintern Executive Committee. For the sake of the workers still
      supporting the C.W.P.G., the Third Comintern Congress decided to
      give it two or three months in which to convene a congress and
      settle the question of unification. The C.W.P.G. leadership
      failed to fulfil the decision of the Third Congress and
      continued their splitting tactics with the result that the
      Comintern Executive Committee was compelled to break off
      relations with the party. The C.W.P.G. found itself outside the
      Comintern and subsequently degenerated into an insignificant
      sectarian group that had no proletarian support whatever and was
      hostile to the working class of Germany.

[5]TheWorkers'
      Oppositionwas an anti-Party faction formed in the Russian
      Communist Party in 1920 by Shlyapnikov, Medvedyev, Kollontai and
      others. It took final shape during the debates on the role of
      the trade unions in 1920-21. Actually there was nothing of the
      working class about this opposition, which expressed the mood
      and aspirations of the petty bourgeoisie. It counterposed the
      trade unions to the Soviet Government and the Communist Party!
      considering them the highest form of working-class
      organisation.

After the Tenth Party Congress, which found the propagation of
      the ideas of the Workers' Opposition incompatible with
      membership in the Communist Party, a large number of
      rank-and-file members of that opposition broke away from
      it.

[6]This is a reference
      to the counter-revolutionary mutiny, which broke out in
      Kronstadt on February 28, 1921. Organised by
      Socialist-Revolutionaries, Mensheviks and whiteguards, it
      involved a considerable number of sailors, most of whom were raw
      recruits from the villages, who had little or no knowledge of
      politics and voiced the peasants' dissatisfaction with the
      requisitioning of surplus food. The economic difficulties in the
      country and the weakening of the Bolshevik organisation at
      Kronstadt facilitated the mutiny.

Hesitating to oppose the Soviet system openly, the
      counter-revolutionary bourgeoisie adopted new tactics. With the
      purpose of deceiving the masses, the leaders of the revolt put
      forward the slogan “Soviets without Communists”,
      hoping to remove the Communists from the leadership of the
      Soviets, destroy the Soviet system and restore the capitalist
      regime in Russia.

On March 2, the mutineers arrested the fleet command. They
      contacted foreign imperialists, who promised them financial and
      military aid. The seizure of Kronstadt by the mutineers created
      a direct threat to Petrograd.

Regular Red Army units commanded by Mikhail Tukhachevsky were
      sent by the Soviet Government to crush the mutiny. The Communist
      Party reinforced these units with more than 500 delegates of the
      Tenth Party Congress; all these men, with Kliment Voroshilov at
      their head, had had fighting experience. The mutiny was snuffed
      out on March 18.

[7]The elections to
      the Constituent Assembly were held on November 12 (25), 1917
      according to lists drawn up before the October Revolution. Most
      of the seats were held by Right Socialist-Revolutionaries and
      other counter-revolutionary elements. Though it did not mirror
      the new alignment of forces that took shape in the country as a
      result of the revolution, the Communist Party and the Soviet
      Government felt the necessity of convening it because backward
      sections of the working population still believed in bourgeois
      parliamentarism. The Assembly opened in Petrograd on January 5
      (18), 1918, but was dissolved on the next day by a decree of the
      All-Russia Central Executive Committee when the
      counter-revolutionary majority in it rejected the Declaration of
      Rights of the Working and Exploited People submitted by the
      All-Russia Central Executive Committee and refused to endorse
      the decrees of the Second Congress of Soviets on peace, land and
      the transfer of power to the Soviets. The decision to dissolve
      the Assembly was whole-heartedly approved by broad masses of
      workers, soldiers and peasants.

[8]This peace treaty
      was signed between Soviet Russia and the Quadruple Alliance
      (Germany, Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria and Turkey) on March
      5,1918. It was ratified on March 15 by the Extraordinary Fourth
      All-Russia Congress of Soviets. The terms were extremely onerous
      for Soviet Russia. They gave Germany and Austria-Hungary control
      over Poland, almost the whole Baltic area and part of
      Byelorussia; the Ukraine was separated from Soviet Russia and
      bocame dependent upon Germany. Turkey received the towns of
      Kars, Batum and Ardagan.

The signing of the Brest Treaty was preceded by a vehement
      struggle against Trotsky and the anti-Party group of “Left
      Communists”.The treaty was signed thanks to a huge effort
      on Lenin's part. It was a wise political compromise, for it gave
      Soviet Russia a peaceful respite and enabled her to demobilise
      the old disintegrating army and create the new, Red Army, start
      socialist construction and muster her forces for the coming
      struggle against internal counter-revolution and foreign
      intervention. This policy promoted the further intensification
      of the struggle for peace and the growth of revolutionary
      sentiments among the troops and the masses of all belligerent
      countries. After the monarchy in Germany was overthrown by the
      revolution of November 1918, the All-Russia Central Executive
      Committee abrogated the predatory Brest Treaty.

[9]Lenin refers to the
      counter-revolutionary mutiny of the Czechoslovak Corps inspired
      by the Entente with the connivance of the Mensheviks and
      Socialist-Revolutionaries. The Corps, consisting of Czech and
      Slovak war prisoners, was formed in Russia before the Great
      October Socialist Revolution. In the summer of 1918 it had more
      than 60,000 mon (altogether in Russia there were about 200,000
      Czech and Slovak prisoners of war). After Soviet rule was
      established, the financing of the Corps was undertaken by the
      Entente powers, who decided to use it against the Soviet
      Republic. Tomas Masaryk, President of the Czechoslovak National
      Council, proclaimed the Corps part of the French Army, and
      Entente representatives raised the question of evacuating it to
      France. The Soviet Government agreed to its evacuation on
      condition that the Russian soldiers in France were allowed to
      return home. Under an agreement signed on March 26, 1918, the
      Corps was given the possibility of leaving Russia via
      Vladivostok, provided it surrendered its weapons and removed the
      counter-revolutionary Russian officers from its command. But the
      counter-revolutionary command of the Corps perfidiously violated
      the agreement with the Soviet Government on the surrender of
      weapons and, acting on orders from the Entente imperialists,
      provoked an armed mutiny at the close of May. Operating in close
      contact with the whiteguards and kulaks, the White Czechs
      occupied considerable territory in the Urals, the Volga country
      and Siberia, everywhere restoring bourgeois rule.

On June 11, soon after the mutiny broke out, the Central
      Executive Committee of the Czechoslovak communist groups in
      Russia appealed to the soldiers of the Corps, exposing the
      counter-revolutionary objectives of the mutiny and calling upon
      the Czech and Slovak workers and peasants to end the mutiny and
      join the Czechoslovak units of the Red Army. Most of the Czech
      and Slovak war prisoners were favourably disposed to Soviet
      power and did not succumb to the anti-Soviet propaganda of the
      Corps' reactionary command. Many of the soldiers refused to
      fight Soviet Russia after they realised that they were being
      deceived. Nearly 12,000 Czechs and Slovaks joined the Red
      Army.

The Volga country was liberated by the Red Army in the autumn of
      1918. The White Czechs were finally routed early in 1920.

[10]Wrangel—baron, tsarist general and rabid
      monarchist. During the foreign military intervention and Civil
      War he was a puppet of the British, French and
      U.S. imperialists. In April-November 1920 he was
      commander-in-chief of the whiteguard armed forces in South
      Russia. He fled abroad after his forces were defeated by the
      Trotsky’s Red Army.

[11]Themistakes
      of the “Lefts” in the Communist Party of
      Germanywere that they incited the working class to
      premature actions. The German bourgeoisie utilised these
      mistakes to provoke the workers into armed action at an
      unpropitious time. A workers' revolt broke out in Central
      Germany in March 1921. That revolt was not supported by the
      workers of other industrial regions with the result that despite
      a heroic struggle it was quickly crushed. For Lenin's assessment
      of this revolt and criticism of the mistakes of the
      “Lefts” see his “Speech in Defence of the
      Tactics of the Communist International” at the Third
      Comintern Congress and his “A Letter to the German
      Communists” (see present edition, Vol. 52, pp. 468-77 and
      512-25).